[B-Greek] Off-topic: source for Imperial quote
George F. Somsel
gfsomsel at juno.com
Fri Jun 11 15:58:16 EDT 2004
I found this in Schaff _History . . ._, I, ii, §16. "For such a monster
the murder of one or two dozen infants in a little town was a very small
matter, which might easily have been overlooked, or, owing to its
connection with the Messiah, purposely ignored by the Jewish historian.
But a confused remembrance of it is preserved in the anecdote related by
Macrobius (a Roman grammarian and probably a heathen, about a.d. 410),
that Augustus, on hearing of Herods murder of "boys under two years" and
of his own son, remarked "that it was better to be Herods swine than his
son."
Macrob., Sat., ii 4: "Augustus, cum audisset, inter pueros, quos in Syria
Herodes, rex Judaeorum, intra bimatum [perhaps taken from Matt. 2:16,
Vulg.: a bimatu et infra]jussit interfici, filium quoque eius occisum,
ait: melius est Herodis porcum esse quam filium." It is a pun on the
similar sounding Greek terms for sow and son (?^? and ????). Kepler
already quoted thispassage in confirmation of Matthew.
gfsomsel
_________
On Fri, 11 Jun 2004 12:21:53 -0700 (PDT) Kenneth Litwak
<javajedi2 at yahoo.com> writes:
> I've been told that Caesar (don't know which one,
> but I would suppose Augustus) said that it was safer
> to be Herod's pig than his son, which is meant to be a
> pun. Can someone please tell me the source of this
> alleged statement? Thanks.
>
> Ken Litwak
>
>
>
>
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